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This Tiny Trailer Expands To 3 Times Its Size With Just 1 Button

Regular campers are a thing of the past: meet the BeauEr, an automatically expandable trailer.

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Eric Beauer / BeauEr

The BeauEr, An Expandable Trailer, Is Revolutionizing The Camper Industry

By Maximilien Weinstein

November 5, 2015

When looking to purchase a camping trailer, one of the most difficult decisions has to do with the vehicle's size. It's all a matter of compromising between comfort and practicality. According to Good Sam Camping's listing, the maximum length authorized for trailers averages 40 feet in most states but dips below that floor in some, like North Carolina, which only tolerates trailers 35 feet long or less. Even abiding by that limit, having a great time in a decent-size space is perfectly possible. What is harder is storing a 35-foot trailer on your property once the trip is over. Luckily for all the travel aficionados out there, a French engineer has just conceived a spacious camper that is capable of shrinking, almost like magic.

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There are already a great many brands of recreational vehicles that can be expanded manually, like the Gidget Retro Teardrop Camper, from Australia. By pulling on handles and opening doors to reveal additional compartments, these products in their final, opened form become considerably larger. But what Eric Beauer has created is a vehicle that will revolutionize the industry by opening up telescopically and with the press of a single button.

"A few years ago I wanted to own a little camper from the 1960s. Unable to find any, I decide to make one," Beauer told the SF Globe. "I wanted it to be small on the road in order to move around easily and large on arrival to make room for a four-member family."

In its standard format, the BeauEr 3X only takes up 43 square feet, making it perfectly easy to bring along on all sorts of travels and store away in between outdoor escapades.

The BeauEr website describes the 3X as being capable of extending from 43 to 130 square feet, multiplying the vehicle's surface by three, hence the name. Without having to go around the camper, pulling here and there and sliding things open, the entire camper just goes from closed to opened within 20 seconds.

With such a system, one would expect the 3X to be mostly empty, because of how it needs to fit into itself, essentially. However, the camper is abundantly furnished, with a bed, a kitchen corner, and a small living area fitted for the addition of a television screen, a useful feature for rainy days.

Beauer also included a small room to his design, the likes of which are only rarely found in smaller campers: a bathroom, which the website describes as including a toilet, sink and shower, despite the limited amount of space.

Beauer designed two other models which are planned for sale in 2016 and 2017, respectively: the 3XC and the 3X+. The BeauEr 3XC is a full-fledged van camper; the camper in it functions the same way as the original concept, and can split from the car and root itself on the ground for extra convenience. For the most ambitious of travelers, the 3X+ already looks like a common trailer in its compact shape, and its trademark telescopic expansion allows it to open up to an impressive 366 square feet while remaining furnished as densely as the original model.

Beauer believes in a concept which he coined, "movehoming," which refers to the freedom of "living wherever one wants," as he told the SF Globe, spending a few months in one area, then driving to a region with a more palatable climate when the seasons change; all the while working from a distance thanks to today's increasingly developed technology. When we prompted the French architect to look at the future of the camper industry, Beauer went on to excitedly reveal his dream of a spacious and entirely autonomous mobile home of his own creation, set up by connecting several 3X+ vehicles to each other and powered through solar energy.

The BeauEr 3X is currently being produced in France only, at around $23,600 before taxes. The 3XC and the 3X+, neither of which are quite ready for fabrication, are currently estimated at $52,000 and $33,000 respectively, taxes not included. Beauer hopes to extend production to the rest of Europe and North America in the future, a feat for which he would need to resort to crowdfunding. Perhaps someday soon, Eric Beauer's "movehoming" dream will come true in a global way.